SOURCEBOOK

Get your copy of the first ever Digital Experience Sourcebook from EContent, which is packed with information about the past, present, and future of all the topics that matter to digital content professionals.

Media Business News and Trends

They started graduating from college and entering the workforce around 2002, according to most sources, although the precise dates for when the millennial generation (aka GenY or Digital Natives) starts and ends vary quite a bit. Technology has always been part of their world. They have always had multiple sources for information and take the ability to be connected 24/7 for granted. According to the Beloit College's Mindset List, this year's entering college graduation class of 2016 was "born into cyberspace." But, despite the fact that these young adults are certainly comfortable with technology, there is growing evidence to suggest that many are eschewing technology and embracing a growing nostalgia for simpler times.

Content marketing, analytics, creative strategy. Complicated, right? The process maybe, but the end goal needs to be simple. Start with the end in mind. What is your goal? What is the desired outcome? Start there and work backwards.

BlackBerry Limited announced it has signed a letter of intent agreement under which a consortium to be led by Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited has offered to acquire the company subject to due diligence. The letter of intent details a transaction in which BlackBerry shareholders would receive $9 in cash for each share they hold, in a transaction valued at approximately $4.7 billion.

Random House LLC, a U.S. division of Penguin Random House has partnered with Flipboard, the news and social media aggregation application, to become the first book publisher to curate content for the platform of 85 million users. The collaboration kicks off with two custom digital magazines. The first, curated by Margaret Atwood, is inspired by her new novel, MaddAddam and the second, by Westeros.org, explores the fictional worlds of George R. R. Martin.

Join us on September, 27 at 11 a.m. EST for another EContent Live Hangout on our Google+ page. Jose Castillo will be talking with Robert Rose from the Content Marketing Institute (and a member of our Content Marketing 50 list) and Michelle Manafy from the Online Publishers Association (and former editor of EContent).

If you're like other publishers, you have a lot of content; a lot of great content. You also have a lot of channels on which you're pushing out that content and an equally diverse group of users to whom you're delivering it. But how do you make the most of that content? By ensuring you can reuse and repurpose it many times across multiple channels and platforms. Through its reuse, companies can get more mileage out of their, often expensive, content. Yes, there's also the cost factor that can't be ignored. "The main reason content is reused is it saves a huge amount of money," says global content strategist Scott Abel.

To app providers, consumers can appear to be a rather fickle, easily distracted bunch, as evidenced by the latest data. Yes, they're downloading more tablet and smartphone apps than ever before (ABI Research estimates that 70 billion will be downloaded globally in 2013), but they're spending less time per session engaging with apps, according to a new study conducted by Localytics.

It was 18 months ago that Upworthy launched to bring smart, informative, and uplifting viral videos to the masses. Now, the site is receiving $8 million in funding from Spark Capital, Catamount Ventures, Uprising, and the Knight Foundation.

The Federal Trade Commission says it will host a workshop on December 4, 2013 in Washington, DC to examine the practice of blending advertisements with news, entertainment, and other content in digital media, referred to as "native advertising" or "sponsored content." This type of advertising has grown increasingly common as publishers look for ways to get the attention of consumers who simply look past banner ads.

As the social media strategist at iAcquire, an agency specializing in digital marketing strategy, SEO, and social media, Megan Brown says, "If there's anything social media-related that comes up or needs to be done, I'm involved." That means working with sales and account managers to pitch to potential clients, creating and implementing social strategy, and networking with influencers on the client's behalf.

Tina Brown has been making headlines regularly over the past few years, including for the guidance she provided in turning the venerated Newsweek magazine into a digital-only product. Now she's in the news again, this time for parting ways with IAC -- her financial backer -- and leaving The Daily Beast where she has long served as the editor-in-chief. Brown said in a statement that she will start Tina Brown Live Media, and will focus on growing her Women of the World conferences.

I recently traveled from Boston to Baltimore for my brother's wedding. I discovered that the older I get, the less I look forward to packing a suit case, schlepping to the airport, fighting with other passengers for overhead bin space, and then watching in horror as the flight attendants detail how to survive if the plane crashes. Not my cup of tea. One thing that has always made it easier for me, though, is technology. Lately it seems that many businesses in the travel and hospitality field are all about giving their customers technology-friendly options -- from free Wi-Fi to "power up" stations -- but my recent trip made me wonder whether these "perks" are just smoke and mirrors.

Amazon introduced Kindle MatchBook, a new benefit that gives customers the option to buy-for $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or free-the Kindle edition of print books they have purchased new from Amazon. Print purchases all the way back to 1995-when Amazon first opened its online bookstore-will qualify once a publisher enrolls a title in Kindle MatchBook.

My wife and I recently began the college search with our youngest child and toured two very similar schools: Marymount Manhattan College and Emerson College. I was encouraged that they both seemed to mix real-world experience with classroom learning, a combination that I think is essential in today's job market. However, I was troubled that one seemed fixated on the jobs of yesterday, while the other seemed more focused on the careers of tomorrow.

It's the time of year when my life nearly has been taken over by my garden. Between the watering, the weeding, and the picking, I'm thinking about hiring a small staff. Frankly, it's a wonder that I still have a job because come May, my mind is always wandering out into the yard. When the sun goes down or the weather turns bad and I'm stuck inside, I'm combing Pinterest for ideas-most of which I'll never be able to implement. This spring, though, many of my thoughts were consumed by compost ... or the lack thereof.

A few years ago, I read a good book called It's Not the Big That Eat the Small...It's the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool by Jason Jennings. He and his co-authors give us 26 strategies and tactics for how companies big and small use speed as a winning tactic. If you examine these business strategies, they no doubt hold merit. But in this day of incredibly high consumer expectations, I argue it's not the fast eating the slow, it's the slow that eat the fast.

Apple has sold about 140 million iPads worldwide since the tablet's launch about 3 years ago. The wildly successful device has disrupted many industries, creating headaches for some (think personal computers and Microsoft) and opportunities for others, including content owners who can take advantage of the device's capabilities.

Digital editions, paywalls, and consolidation aren't the only life rafts that can help keep newspapers afloat today. The fate of many valued dailies and weeklies may also rest in the hands of big boys with big bucks aiming for private but powerful ownership. Jeff Bezos' recent purchase of the Washington Post certainly isn't a one-off anomaly. Earlier this year, Boston Red Sox owner John W. Henry snatched up The Boston Globe, Wellesley businessman Aaron Kushner bought the Orange County Register and six other dailies last year, and in 2011 the San Diego Union-Tribune was sold to hotelier Doug Manchester. Additionally, Warren Buffett acquired dozens of local papers, the newest of which are the Roanoke Times and Press of Atlantic City (although his investment firm recently dumped shares of Gannett).

The next wave of mobile internet users will be from urban areas of emerging markets, finds Ovum. The lack of fixed internet infrastructure in the region and the significant purchasing power of urban residents are pushing both end users and service providers towards mobile. New research from Ovum highlights the correlation between the growth of the mobile internet and the adoption of "smart" devices in emerging markets.

I could spend hours looking at images of couture gowns, fashion shows, and the latest luxe shoes and handbags. Since an "It" bag can easily set you back $12,000, and there's a months-long waiting list, I'm unlikely to ever own one of these items. But the world of high fashion is fascinating. Fascinating, too, is fashion's evolving digital engagement. From a slow start, it now brings together the worlds of publishing, content marketing, and ecommerce in interesting and disruptive ways.

According to a post by Jane Friedman on the Open Road Integrated Media blog, the digital publisher raised $11 million in Series C funding through a partnership with NewSpring Capital. NewSpring led the funding round with an $8 million investment, and existing investors Kohlberg Ventures, Azure Capital, and Golden Seeds supplied the difference.

Last year's mobile data traffic was nearly 12 times the size of the entire internet in 2000, according to Cisco. Global mobile data traffic in 2012 was 885 petabytes per month, compared to internet traffic of 75 petabytes per month in 2000. That's a lot of bytes-and traffic continues to grow.Given this exponential growth, and related opportunity, organizations of all kinds are eagerly looking for creative ways to connect and compel consumers to engage with their content, and their advertising, via mobile devices. As they do this, they're looking for effective ways to monetize those apps to drive revenue to the bottom line in ways that range from paid content to advertising, and more.

HuffPost Live is all grown up. Arianna Huffington reminded us all that on August 13, the social video channel turned a year old. More importantly, she shared some interesting stats about the interactive news channel. In the past year, the Huffpost Live has "generated over 445,000,000 video views, attracting more than 13 million unique visitors a month."

Apple may have been found guilty of anti-trust in the legal system - a ruling that the company is appealing - but things aren't as clear cut in the court of public opinion, and the whole thing just keeps getting murkier and murkier. The five publishers that were originally named in the suit are unhappy with the terms of Apple's punishment, which would require that Apple be allowed to discount its ebooks for five years - even though the original settlement between the publishers and the DOJ agreed to two years. Publishers are calling this punitive, meanwhile, Apple intends to appeal the court's ruling and has requested a stay of all the court's rulings until its appeal can be heard. The request to stay the rulings was denied. Judge Denise Cote is also reportedly considering limiting Apple to negotiating with one publisher per every six months.